This invention relates to a system for dust precipitation from air using negative ionization of the air.
The concept and prospective commercialization of negative ionization techniques has been around for decades with very little progress due to the lack of credibility arising from inappropriate, largely unsuccessful applications and clouded by exaggerated unsubstantiated claims.
At the same time the effectiveness of the technique suffered because the equipment to generate and distribute the required volumes of negative ions was initially bulky, expensive, requiring constant maintenance and was generally unreliable. These circumstances meant that the effectiveness of applications deteriorated rapidly and became totally suspect in operation.
The increasing employment of the technology is being brought about by some basic trends:
the development of equipment utilizing electronics and new materials which provide a safe, reliable, inexpensive, and non polluting source of negative ions and their distribution.
an increasing need to improve the air quality in enclosed environments which have been designed to minimize energy costs for heating, ventilating and air conditioning installations.
higher standards of safety and health in the workplace in regard to the control of micronic and submicronic pollutants identified as a health hazard.
zero defect objectives in manufacturing operations requiring more effective means to control the migration of fine dust and pollutants.
hard evidence of the effectiveness of industrial applications and increasing supportive scientific evidence as regards proper electro climate conditions for human comfort and working efficiency.
Off-shore countries, particularly Israel have maintained a fairly high level of research and development effort into pursuing the effectiveness of negative ionization techniques in a wide range of applications with considerable success.
Progress in North America in this respect, industrially at least, has been limited to the elimination of static electricity, but with strong indications of a recent revival of air treatment by modular, fan assisted negative ion dispersal units.
Conventional systems to obtain super clean air with filtration efficiencies in the micronic and sub-micronic ranges are capital intensive and expensive to run in terms of energy consumption and maintenance costs.
At the same time the systems while fully effective on the air circulated can have little influence to prevent small particulants and pollutants originating in the working plennum producing problems, apart from the inherent dilution refreshening process allowed by the cycle of air changes supplied to the area. An investigation into further prior art suggests that while the use of negative ionization techniques to improve air quality and contain dust pollution in a general way is gaining ground, there is little doubt that the level of technology available is relatively crude.
Ions are created in nature by sunlight, cosmic and terrestrial radiation and the friction of moving air and water that causes electrons to leave hydrogen, nitrogen and other molecules and to attach themselves to oxygen molecules.
Molecules with extra electrons from negative ions and have a positive effect on the environment. They neutralize odours and contribute to the clear air and the fresh smell we find in non-industrial, sparsely populated areas and at the seaside or healthy holiday resorts.
In the Prairie regions of Canada, the phenomenon best manifests itself by the invigoration experienced after a summer storm with lightning, which relieves the heavy depressing conditions which gradually build up periodically in such areas during the summer.
Positive ions are produced by car and factory exhausts, cigarette smoke, dust, soot, fumes from new processes and other domestic and industrial pollutants. attracted negative ground and are harmlessly discharged. But in the enclosed environments of modern society--metals, cars, builings lined and furbished with synethetic materials, etc., these pollutions cannot be discharged to earth.
At the same time the enveloping car bodies and building structures that keep the positive ions in, also keep the beneficial negative ions out because their electrical charges are absorbed by steel and concrete, bricks and siding material.
A controlled output of negative ions can be produced by electronic means/corona discharge and this source is an approved alternative for the Polonium Ionizers withdrawn from the market by 3M in Feb. 1988. The source generation of ozone is so low as to be almost immeasurable and well below the FDA maximum of 0.05 ppm.